By TwoStickSquidge
Created on: 2024-07-06 13:24
"Justice doesn't flow from police guns. I'm reminded of that all the time. As long as there is a law peace will be a crime."
-Ramshackle Glory, First Song Pt. 2 (2011) [1]
"Anarchy..." what conjures in the mind of the layperson when they hear the word is a state of chaos and destruction, a world where everyone does what they want and no one is safe from the violence of human impulse. They see a world where people murder one another with no rhyme or reason or recourse. This couldn't be further from the truth.
Anarchism as a political ideology seeks to liberate the individual from all hierarchical and coercive structures of power. It seeks to make people equal, so that no one person has power over another to coerce or force someone to make decisions that are in the interest of a person or cause greater than themself. It seeks to put an end to the political violence of the state with its prisons and militaries, as well as the political violence of the property owners who act as millions of petty tyrants across the world.
Anarchism takes many forms and there are about as many strains of Anarchist thought as there are Anarchists. However, all seek the destruction of hierarchy, the state, and the capitalist system of dictatorial property ownership. Many of these strains of thought have to do with the methods, how the economy will function, and overall what society will look like when fully Anarchist.
I myself would be what can be described by other Anarchists as an "Egoist Anarcho-Syndicalist with a Mutualist bend." to the layperson this may just seem like a bit of a word salad and it's easy to see why. These are specifications on an ideology already seemingly adopted only by the fringes who know how to describe their oddly specific belief systems. I will do my best to explain.
I believe that making small-scale attempts at escaping the capitalist system and building power among common people to end their dependence on governmental systems is the best way forward toward a completely free society. There are also other strains of Anarchism that disagree with this framework, some are more revolutionary and believe that a violent uprising to destroy the state and capitalist class will bring about an Anarchist society. Some believe that Anarchism and freedom are "morally good" and are a higher cause to strive for, incompatible with Egoism. Anarcho-Communists believe in a full gift-economy, where goods and services are not bought and sold but instead are just done for the sake of doing them and for benefitting your fellow man. I personally find all of these to be either too utopian or, in the case of revolution, too far out from our time to be realized. I am more pacifistic in my beliefs in that I think the systems of power should not be violently retaliated against but rather they should be rendered obsolete by alternative methods of organizing.
Tags: #Politics #Anarchism #Syndicalsim